It's almost here, the time of year that geeks wait all year for — the Black Friday/Cyber Monday holiday shopping extravaganza.

Retailers all over the country — indeed, all over the world — are preparing to unleash their biggest, most exciting promotional events of 2012. There will be droolworthy devices, hot accessories, must-have applications and more, on discounts big and small.

Walmart has a three-prong strategy to keep the masses coming back: Deals will get introduced on Thanksgiving Day at 8 PM, with more launching at 10 PM and again on Friday at 5 AM. So if you're interested in snagging an iPad 2 for $400 and getting a $70 gift card, you'll want to note these times.

Squeamish about buying an iPad from Walmart? Then take note of Target, which is also opening early (at 9 PM on Thanksgiving). Here, the deal is for the latest Retina Display iPad for $500, and it comes with a $60 gift card.

Amazon, of course, has no store hours — which is good for TV buyers, as the e-retailer is slashing prices on a range of televisions.

Other deals of note (based on ads released or leaked, courtesy of MyFoxLA):

  • Walmart: 60-inch Vizio E601i-A3 1080p WiFi LED HDTV $688.00
  • RadioShack: 32GB SanDisk Cruzer Glide USB 2.0 Flash Drive $9.99, Virgin Mobile HTC One V Prepaid phone $99.99
  • Sears: 50-inch' Toshiba 50L2200U 1080p LED HDTV $299.99
  • Office Depot: 32GB Nexus 7 $222.99
  • Kmart: 32-inch Proscan 720p LCD TV $97.00 (This makes a great TV for the kids' video games so they don't have to hog the time on the main home TV)
  • Best Buy (hold on to your hats): 40-inch Toshiba 40E220U 1080p LCD HDTV $179.99, 50″ Toshiba 50L2200U 1080p LCD HDTV $399.99, Virgin Mobile LG Optimus Elite Prepaid Android Phone (White) $49.99, 3TB Seagate Backup Plus USB 3.0 External Desktop Hard Drive $99.99, $200 Xbox360 bundle with Skyrim, SGSIII under $50 with a 2-year contract.

This, of course, only scratches the surface. Apple, HP, and others are all gearing up for the season too, and you know what that means — the savings are positively doing to rain down on the masses very, very soon.

Have you seen an incredible promotion or unbelievable deal? Tell us about it in the comments below. There's less than a week to go before Black Friday, so join us in the deal hunt!